How to Motivate Yourself for Success

We all want to succeed… be it in business or a personal fitness goal, humans naturally want to experience the glory of success. And while it is easy to talk about the things you’d like to accomplish or the tasks you’d like to take on, actually acting upon them can be the most challenging part of success. Many more people could bask in success if they just got started on their goals, but starting can be the hardest part.

So it’s time to get off the couch, or off whatever time wasting website flew under the radar of your office’s site blocker and get working towards success. And sorry, watching 17 consecutive reruns of Friends on Netflix doesn’t count as success. And neither does the 429 likes you earned on your most recent Instagram photo of avocado yoga latte scenic sunset. We’re talking business. And in business your success will lead to great reward.

Define What You Consider SuccessI’ve told you what success isn’t. But I can’t tell you what success is in business, because for different people, it is a different definition. You have to sit down, free yourself of distractions and solidly define what success is for you in your business or industry.

It can be as simple as introducing a new product that attracts new customers to your business, or as ambitious as tripling your profit and putting the competition out of business.Success can be something you accomplish each month, each quarter, or even at the end of your five year plan. Whatever your success is, you won’t get there if you don’t know when you’ve reached it or even what it is what it is.

Create a Map to Your SuccessNow that you know where you want to go, it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to get there. Set a plan for how you will accomplish the goals you want to attain. This is a set of goals that you must accomplish in order to achieve your success. This will make it easier to tackle each separate part, and break it down into sections that will be easier to motivate yourself to accomplish each part.

It’s okay to make pit stops along the way after you’ve completed a shorter leg of the trip. As long as you are moving forward and meeting the goals you set for along the way, you’re on the path for success. You’ll also know where you need to go next after meeting one goal. Without a plan or a map, you won’t know which way to turn or which step to take after you finish one.

Prepare for Success by Getting OrganizedIt’s pretty hard to motivate yourself if your office is a disaster, and your desktop is so cluttered with various out of date projects that you can’t find the file you most recently completed. Motivation is difficult, so you really don’t want any excuses to not complete a task. It’s pretty easy to look at your to-do list and push something off it because you can’t find it or the tools necessary to complete it.

Don’t set yourself up for failure, do everything you can in your power to make the path to success an easier venture. You’re going to encounter many roadblocks along the way, so get rid of the ones that you caused yourself due to your own disorganization.

Set Attainable Goals for YourselfWhen you’re setting goals along your map to success, be reasonable. While it would be nice in theory to quadruple profits by third quarter, that isn’t always going to be a goal you’re able to meet. Some people will be able to do that, but if you reach that high that fast, you’ll be discouraged and get off track if it doesn’t work out.

Accomplishing smaller goals along the way will let you know you’re succeeding and help motivate you to keep going. Think of it in terms of pounds, if you say you want to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, and after a month you’ve only lost 10, it’s going to be really easy to say why bother? But guess what, ten pounds is a damn good accomplishment. The same applies to business, either profits, new customers, paying down loans, whatever your definition for success.

But Make Sure They’re Measurable GoalsSetting goals that are measurable is really important, because if you can’t measure your success, how will you know if you’ve reached it? Too many times people set arbitrary goals that are difficult to measure. This means you have to have to be organized because you need starting figures and end figures. If you just say that you want to have happier employees in 2018, you’ll have to know how happy they are in 2017. This can be done but it is a little tricky though because there are so many subjective components.

You could look at it from the perspective of employee retention from one year to the next. These are hard numbers that can be compiled, and the subjective information can be gathered in exit interviews. This information can be compared from one year to the next to see if you were successful in improving employee retention, which can be tied into employee happiness. Work harder is hard to measure. A measure of success like gain 10% more clients means you worked harder, but at the end it is easy to measure your success rate.

Once you set out on the path for success, you’ll find that it is much easier to motivate yourself. Motivation is the hardest part of getting started on success, but if you break it into smaller pieces you won’t need quite as much motivation to tackle a project. So get organized and start working on your definition of what success is, so you not only have an end goal in mind, you’ll be able to have a clear route to get here.